Cloud financial planning pioneer Anaplan, which is currently on an expansion drive in Asia-Pacific, on January 14 announced a new funding round of $90 million, bringing its total venture capital backing to almost $240 million. The Series E round was led by India’s Premji Invest and now boosts the company’s post-money valuation to more than $1 billion, according to Anaplan CEO Fred Laluyaux.

Industry experts say that the next stop for the company, dubbed the “Excel-killer” as it frees financial planners from spreadsheet-based calculation tools, could likely be an initial public offering. However, according to Laluyaux, the company has “no IPO plans to announce right now, but it’s our aspiration. It would be a good thing for our customers, our staff and investors. We don’t have a date. When we think it’s right to do it we will.”

The other backers of the funding round were Scotland’s Baillie Gifford, along with Founders Circle Capital, Harmony Partners and Anaplan’s current investors including Brookside Capital, Coatue Management, DFJ Growth, Granite Ventures, Meritech Capital Partners, Salesforce, Sands Capital Management and Shasta Ventures. Allen & Company LLC served as financial adviser to Anaplan on this latest round of financing.

Anaplan said it will use the funds “to fulfill increasing global demand for its cloud-based business planning and modeling platform.”

On parts of Premji Invest, its Partner and Lead U.S. Investor Sandesh Patnam said that “we are thrilled to lead this investment round because we have seen a broad range of companies around the world transform their businesses with Anaplan’s agile planning and modeling platform. Anaplan is a game changer because it enables companies to not only make processes faster and easier, but also fundamentally change the way their people work and make decisions.”

Anaplan also announced the appointment of James Budge as CFO. Budge brings to Anaplan more than 20 years of Silicon Valley leadership in private and public companies. Most recently at Genesys, he led global finance, corporate development, legal, human resources and IT.

“With the significant momentum Anaplan has achieved to date, I am delighted to join the company to oversee our continued growth,” said Budge.

San Fransisco-based Anaplan has become the global leader in cloud-based, enterprise-wide planning and modeling and has been one of the fastest-growing Software-as-a-Service companies in recent years.

“Every day we meet executives across the world expressing urgency to become numbers-driven in the strategic and tactical decisions they make. But they are stuck using technologies that were designed 30 or more years ago in another era where today’s business challenges didn’t exist,” Laluyaux said.

“They are deploying Anaplan into every area of their business – finance, sales, marketing, human resources, supply chain, operations and IT – because Anaplan’s platform and apps enable a radically new approach to how businesses plan, execute, simulate changes and rapidly course-correct their operations,” he added.

Anaplan, founded in 2006, has now a presence in 15 offices across 11 countries. Its current focus is on a swift expansion in Asia, particularly to China, India and Japan, as well as within Southeast Asia and to other countries in Asia Pacific, as well as in Europe. Presently, Anaplan’s total global workforce is more than 550 employees, a number that nearly doubled over the past year.

Highlights of Anaplan’s first half of its fiscal year ending January 2016 include a growth in revenue of 134 per cent year-on-year. User numbers increased over 160 per cent year-on-year to more than 60,000 in the period.

Cloud financial planning pioneer Anaplan, which is currently on an expansion drive in Asia-Pacific, on January 14 announced a new funding round of $90 million, bringing its total venture capital backing to almost $240 million. The Series E round was led by India’s Premji Invest and now boosts the company’s post-money valuation to more than $1 billion, according to Anaplan CEO Fred Laluyaux.

Industry experts say that the next stop for the company, dubbed the “Excel-killer” as it frees financial planners from spreadsheet-based calculation tools, could likely be an initial public offering. However, according to Laluyaux, the company has “no IPO plans to announce right now, but it’s our aspiration. It would be a good thing for our customers, our staff and investors. We don’t have a date. When we think it’s right to do it we will.”

The other backers of the funding round were Scotland’s Baillie Gifford, along with Founders Circle Capital, Harmony Partners and Anaplan’s current investors including Brookside Capital, Coatue Management, DFJ Growth, Granite Ventures, Meritech Capital Partners, Salesforce, Sands Capital Management and Shasta Ventures. Allen & Company LLC served as financial adviser to Anaplan on this latest round of financing.

Anaplan said it will use the funds “to fulfill increasing global demand for its cloud-based business planning and modeling platform.”

On parts of Premji Invest, its Partner and Lead U.S. Investor Sandesh Patnam said that “we are thrilled to lead this investment round because we have seen a broad range of companies around the world transform their businesses with Anaplan’s agile planning and modeling platform. Anaplan is a game changer because it enables companies to not only make processes faster and easier, but also fundamentally change the way their people work and make decisions.”

Anaplan also announced the appointment of James Budge as CFO. Budge brings to Anaplan more than 20 years of Silicon Valley leadership in private and public companies. Most recently at Genesys, he led global finance, corporate development, legal, human resources and IT.

“With the significant momentum Anaplan has achieved to date, I am delighted to join the company to oversee our continued growth,” said Budge.

San Fransisco-based Anaplan has become the global leader in cloud-based, enterprise-wide planning and modeling and has been one of the fastest-growing Software-as-a-Service companies in recent years.

“Every day we meet executives across the world expressing urgency to become numbers-driven in the strategic and tactical decisions they make. But they are stuck using technologies that were designed 30 or more years ago in another era where today’s business challenges didn’t exist,” Laluyaux said.

“They are deploying Anaplan into every area of their business – finance, sales, marketing, human resources, supply chain, operations and IT – because Anaplan’s platform and apps enable a radically new approach to how businesses plan, execute, simulate changes and rapidly course-correct their operations,” he added.

Anaplan, founded in 2006, has now a presence in 15 offices across 11 countries. Its current focus is on a swift expansion in Asia, particularly to China, India and Japan, as well as within Southeast Asia and to other countries in Asia Pacific, as well as in Europe. Presently, Anaplan’s total global workforce is more than 550 employees, a number that nearly doubled over the past year.

Highlights of Anaplan’s first half of its fiscal year ending January 2016 include a growth in revenue of 134 per cent year-on-year. User numbers increased over 160 per cent year-on-year to more than 60,000 in the period.